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Basdad t1_iscdccd wrote

Reply to comment by HugeElephantEars in First female chief in Malawi, South Africa ends child marriage by messyredemptions

Thank you for being accurate, title was bothering me.

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DrMandalay t1_iseepcz wrote

The West treats Africa like it's a small village, not a continent of a billion people. Malawi, South Africa. What a joke.

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Safferino83 t1_isezmmt wrote

I moved to Australia and when one person found out I was South African they asked if I knew such and such in Kenya…. Also when they find out my mother was born in Zimbabwe ( Rhodesia in those days) I get the response “…….. but your not black”

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Basdad t1_isenpc9 wrote

Indeed, I considered making the comment that many of us (in the US) believe that Africa I’d a village of mud huts.

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Justforthenuews t1_isfm0qo wrote

There have been times when I tried to explain to other Americans that parts of Africa are culturally aligned with the Middle East, and the looks on their faces. Dear lord, I’ve seen it when I say Egypt is located in Africa.

Obviously this isn’t everyone, and in my experience it’s not even the majority (take that with a cup of salt, the US is huge), but it really makes you want to slam your face into a tree when you run into someone that’s a walking stereotype of what people from other countries think of Americans.

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Cethinn t1_isgt282 wrote

Luckily all of Africa is a desert so there's no trees to slam your head into. (/s if that's required for some reason)

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MaxTHC t1_isgqm89 wrote

Giving the author the benefit of the doubt, her bio says she's from Kenya. Which is, you know, in Africa. So she certainly doesn't represent "The West" here, and it's quite possible English isn't her first language.

Many languages don't really have a distinction between "South X" and "Southern X". And in English we do use "West Africa", "East Africa", and "North Africa" to refer to entire regions with multiple countries. So it's not entirely unreasonable to assume that "South Africa" refers to the whole region.

South America is a continent, South Asia is a region, South Africa is a country, and South Australia is a state. That's not necessarily easy to keep straight.

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messyredemptions OP t1_ish5j5a wrote

Yes, I'm wondering also if she referred to it as South due to her own geographic bias where Malawi would in general be South of Kenya.

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